The proper use of tests
10 November 2008
Read by 1817 persons
In standard skills assessments, In-depth Skills Assessments (ANPE), in school/professional guidance programs, or even in recruitment situations by a company or upon entering a training program, you will hear the fateful word TEST.
But what exactly is it? Apart from the fact that you know it is not a blood test or a doping test (unless you are a cyclist), this term remains vague, and for good reason…
Indeed, from a very young age, you have taken many tests:
• Hearing and eye tests at the doctor’s office,
• Language learning and motor skills tests at preschool at the age of 4,
• The "little man" test to check that you have properly integrated your body schema,
• The "Pattes Noires" test –or another similar test– to measure the child’s sociability, personality, and so on,
• Orientation test in 4th/3rd grade in middle school.
• Speech therapy test in case of suspected dyslexia…
• Not to mention, of course, the test given by the recruiter who wants to be "up-to-date": "Among the following elements, which one do you prefer and why: earth, fire, water, air" : (no, there is no mistake, you are not reading a horoscope column in a women’s magazine, and yet, it is easy to mistake it!!)
• Or even the test available online:
"In five minutes and 10 clicks, discover your dominant personality profile" (same comment as above).
You will have obviously understood that this is not a plea praising tests –should I say testing in general– nor a harsh critique of certain tests in particular –although…– but rather an attempt on my part to enlighten you on this subject, both on the test object itself and on its use.
Among all the examples cited above, you will find:
specific tests (medical, clinical…), psychometric tests used in guidance, training (…), the rest being only a test by name.
Not being a doctor or a clinician, I will not discuss the former. I will also, as you will have understood, pass over the last category in silence.
But what then are psychometric tests and above all, what are they used for? How can you differentiate a good test from a bad one?
I will of course try to answer these questions from my point of view, which is intended to be professional, but also personal and therefore commits only myself. I leave you to be the sole judge of my remarks, which have no other pretense than to open the debate and initiate reflection…
For general knowledge, it should be known that psychometrics comes from scientific psychology from the early 1930s. The first psychotechnicians considered that professional aptitudes can only come from more general aptitudes, which requires an exhaustive description of the individual. (cf. Psychology of Guidance by Jean Guichard and Michel Huteau, Dunod Editions, Paris, 2001)
A serious "battery of tests" includes tests that can measure:
- Cognitive and intellectual aptitudes, both in terms of current level and potential for the future. These aptitudes are multiple and generally concern French (comprehension, vocabulary, grammar…), mathematics (the four operations, more or less complex problem-solving), logical reasoning (deductive, inductive, analogical), practical reasoning (spatial, technical-practical)
- Personal and professional values and motivations: that is to say, what the person is looking for in going to work (job security, prestige of the work, variety of tasks, etc.) and what interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships represent for them (self-recognition, benevolence towards others…).
- Professional interests in terms of occupational fields and activities. For example, liking to take photographs does not mean that one aspires to become a photographer. This is therefore an interest in the "task" of photography but not in the profession of photographer.
- Personality traits: This is the most delicate category of tests to interpret and the most subject to the "assault" of unreliable tests. Personality tests highlight the most salient character traits, which are to be related to the professional world. Thus, a person who turns out to be rather shy or even introverted and who wishes to become a salesperson must bear in mind that, by their nature, their professional goal may be difficult to achieve, unless they do some work on themselves, but at what cost, etc….
The personality traits measured are generally directed towards: introversion/extraversion, sociability, openness to the internal and external universe (ideas, values…), self-control, the ability to manage one’s emotions and desires, conformity, the person’s activity/passivity, the approach and management of problems, anxiety, self-esteem, personal challenge…
Some tests combine personality and values, interests and self-reported skills at the same time. These couplings can be interesting and provide a double perspective on the person.
As a psychosociologist by training, and having practiced skills assessments for all audiences (young/adult, job seeker/employee) for several years, I can say that psychometric tests "serve" a purpose in the field of guidance and professional integration/reintegration. However, it is still necessary to know how to choose and use them.
To do so, here are some criteria to respect:
• Reliability of the tests: the tests must be purchased from test publishing houses. They are calibrated on fairly large reference populations and are therefore statistically reliable; unlike "in-house" tests that some assessment centers may construct. They also have nothing to do with "cobbled-together" tests that we find in large numbers on websites or in popularization magazines.
Furthermore, the only persons legally authorized to use them must be psychologists by training (i.e., having followed the entire psychology curriculum at university) for the administration, correction, scoring and interpretation of the tests. Finally, it should be noted that some tests require specific training provided by the publishing house.
• Adaptability of the tests: the tests must be chosen according to:
o The expectations and objectives related to the tests: entry into training, project verification, definition of a professional project, retraining…
o The profile of the person: mainly in relation to their educational level, their professional background, but also to what the person reveals about themselves during interviews in terms of maturity and personality. The choice of tests must be adjusted according to the reactivity of the persons during the administration of these tests: for example, if a person’s educational level has been overestimated, the test will be replaced by one that is closer to the person’s aptitudes so as not to put them in difficulty.
A test cannot be dissociated from face-to-face individual interviews with the person
Relativity of tests: a test, however reliable it may be, is not omnipotent: it does not deliver an absolute reality, if such a unique and universal Reality exists. We know that tests only produce a reflection of the person at a given moment, in other words, at the moment when the person took them: thus, the contextual circumstances in which the person finds themselves in general (job searching, personal crisis, marital conflict, financial problems…) but also the person’s emotional, psychological and physical state at the time of the administration (stress, medication, alcohol addiction…) must be taken into account for the analysis.
Furthermore, when interpreting tests, care must be taken not to confine the person to a categorization: when the results are returned, the interpretations will only make sense when they meet the subject’s reactions: in other words, the person must say whether or not they recognize themselves in these interpretations, how, why, etc…. And it is this co-construction that will make it possible to refine the interpretations to make them as close as possible to the person’s reality.
This professional practice is a guarantee of serious use of tests and is very different from the practice of printing out, after computer administration, beautiful colored "pie charts" that –certainly– allow the person to see in which range they are located, but do not necessarily trigger a deeper process of awareness and appropriation.
You will have understood that being tested is almost unavoidable in our modern society of hyper-control and omnipotence of things and human beings. Just as a reliable test, interpreted by a rigorous and empathetic professional, can be a "plus" insofar as it is a mediator that allows you to put into words what you felt about yourself in an intuitive or even preconscious way; just as a "high-tech" test from an unidentifiable source returned by an invisible person is often a lure to enrich consultants who are no more psychologists than your houseplant.
A test, yes, why not (but then for what purpose?), and not under any conditions…a test that moves things forward, and not one that allows you to "break" or categorize yourself in the class of the "no": not adapted, not adaptable, not wanted, not competent, not "at all". A test that allows you to glimpse your flaws, but also and above all your strengths, and how to work on everything to restore your integrity, your own individuality… because that is above all what a healthy world is: composed of different individuals distinctly fulfilled in their unique and universal singularity!
Géraldine Psaltopoulos
Psychologist and Director of Assessment Centers
Posted online on November 10, 2008
orientation-metiers.fr
But what exactly is it? Apart from the fact that you know it is not a blood test or a doping test (unless you are a cyclist), this term remains vague, and for good reason…
Indeed, from a very young age, you have taken many tests:
• Hearing and eye tests at the doctor’s office,
• Language learning and motor skills tests at preschool at the age of 4,
• The "little man" test to check that you have properly integrated your body schema,
• The "Pattes Noires" test –or another similar test– to measure the child’s sociability, personality, and so on,
• Orientation test in 4th/3rd grade in middle school.
• Speech therapy test in case of suspected dyslexia…
• Not to mention, of course, the test given by the recruiter who wants to be "up-to-date": "Among the following elements, which one do you prefer and why: earth, fire, water, air" : (no, there is no mistake, you are not reading a horoscope column in a women’s magazine, and yet, it is easy to mistake it!!)
• Or even the test available online:
"In five minutes and 10 clicks, discover your dominant personality profile" (same comment as above).
You will have obviously understood that this is not a plea praising tests –should I say testing in general– nor a harsh critique of certain tests in particular –although…– but rather an attempt on my part to enlighten you on this subject, both on the test object itself and on its use.
Among all the examples cited above, you will find:
specific tests (medical, clinical…), psychometric tests used in guidance, training (…), the rest being only a test by name.
Not being a doctor or a clinician, I will not discuss the former. I will also, as you will have understood, pass over the last category in silence.
But what then are psychometric tests and above all, what are they used for? How can you differentiate a good test from a bad one?
I will of course try to answer these questions from my point of view, which is intended to be professional, but also personal and therefore commits only myself. I leave you to be the sole judge of my remarks, which have no other pretense than to open the debate and initiate reflection…
For general knowledge, it should be known that psychometrics comes from scientific psychology from the early 1930s. The first psychotechnicians considered that professional aptitudes can only come from more general aptitudes, which requires an exhaustive description of the individual. (cf. Psychology of Guidance by Jean Guichard and Michel Huteau, Dunod Editions, Paris, 2001)
A serious "battery of tests" includes tests that can measure:
- Cognitive and intellectual aptitudes, both in terms of current level and potential for the future. These aptitudes are multiple and generally concern French (comprehension, vocabulary, grammar…), mathematics (the four operations, more or less complex problem-solving), logical reasoning (deductive, inductive, analogical), practical reasoning (spatial, technical-practical)
- Personal and professional values and motivations: that is to say, what the person is looking for in going to work (job security, prestige of the work, variety of tasks, etc.) and what interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships represent for them (self-recognition, benevolence towards others…).
- Professional interests in terms of occupational fields and activities. For example, liking to take photographs does not mean that one aspires to become a photographer. This is therefore an interest in the "task" of photography but not in the profession of photographer.
- Personality traits: This is the most delicate category of tests to interpret and the most subject to the "assault" of unreliable tests. Personality tests highlight the most salient character traits, which are to be related to the professional world. Thus, a person who turns out to be rather shy or even introverted and who wishes to become a salesperson must bear in mind that, by their nature, their professional goal may be difficult to achieve, unless they do some work on themselves, but at what cost, etc….
The personality traits measured are generally directed towards: introversion/extraversion, sociability, openness to the internal and external universe (ideas, values…), self-control, the ability to manage one’s emotions and desires, conformity, the person’s activity/passivity, the approach and management of problems, anxiety, self-esteem, personal challenge…
Some tests combine personality and values, interests and self-reported skills at the same time. These couplings can be interesting and provide a double perspective on the person.
As a psychosociologist by training, and having practiced skills assessments for all audiences (young/adult, job seeker/employee) for several years, I can say that psychometric tests "serve" a purpose in the field of guidance and professional integration/reintegration. However, it is still necessary to know how to choose and use them.
To do so, here are some criteria to respect:
• Reliability of the tests: the tests must be purchased from test publishing houses. They are calibrated on fairly large reference populations and are therefore statistically reliable; unlike "in-house" tests that some assessment centers may construct. They also have nothing to do with "cobbled-together" tests that we find in large numbers on websites or in popularization magazines.
Furthermore, the only persons legally authorized to use them must be psychologists by training (i.e., having followed the entire psychology curriculum at university) for the administration, correction, scoring and interpretation of the tests. Finally, it should be noted that some tests require specific training provided by the publishing house.
• Adaptability of the tests: the tests must be chosen according to:
o The expectations and objectives related to the tests: entry into training, project verification, definition of a professional project, retraining…
o The profile of the person: mainly in relation to their educational level, their professional background, but also to what the person reveals about themselves during interviews in terms of maturity and personality. The choice of tests must be adjusted according to the reactivity of the persons during the administration of these tests: for example, if a person’s educational level has been overestimated, the test will be replaced by one that is closer to the person’s aptitudes so as not to put them in difficulty.
A test cannot be dissociated from face-to-face individual interviews with the person
Relativity of tests: a test, however reliable it may be, is not omnipotent: it does not deliver an absolute reality, if such a unique and universal Reality exists. We know that tests only produce a reflection of the person at a given moment, in other words, at the moment when the person took them: thus, the contextual circumstances in which the person finds themselves in general (job searching, personal crisis, marital conflict, financial problems…) but also the person’s emotional, psychological and physical state at the time of the administration (stress, medication, alcohol addiction…) must be taken into account for the analysis.
Furthermore, when interpreting tests, care must be taken not to confine the person to a categorization: when the results are returned, the interpretations will only make sense when they meet the subject’s reactions: in other words, the person must say whether or not they recognize themselves in these interpretations, how, why, etc…. And it is this co-construction that will make it possible to refine the interpretations to make them as close as possible to the person’s reality.
This professional practice is a guarantee of serious use of tests and is very different from the practice of printing out, after computer administration, beautiful colored "pie charts" that –certainly– allow the person to see in which range they are located, but do not necessarily trigger a deeper process of awareness and appropriation.
You will have understood that being tested is almost unavoidable in our modern society of hyper-control and omnipotence of things and human beings. Just as a reliable test, interpreted by a rigorous and empathetic professional, can be a "plus" insofar as it is a mediator that allows you to put into words what you felt about yourself in an intuitive or even preconscious way; just as a "high-tech" test from an unidentifiable source returned by an invisible person is often a lure to enrich consultants who are no more psychologists than your houseplant.
A test, yes, why not (but then for what purpose?), and not under any conditions…a test that moves things forward, and not one that allows you to "break" or categorize yourself in the class of the "no": not adapted, not adaptable, not wanted, not competent, not "at all". A test that allows you to glimpse your flaws, but also and above all your strengths, and how to work on everything to restore your integrity, your own individuality… because that is above all what a healthy world is: composed of different individuals distinctly fulfilled in their unique and universal singularity!
Géraldine Psaltopoulos
Psychologist and Director of Assessment Centers
Posted online on November 10, 2008
orientation-metiers.fr
